23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

With new potatoes, simplest is best. You want to let the taste of the potato come through.

Any Swede will tell you to sprinkle your new potatoes with dill...butter and salt are a given.

Doesn't mean the habs are still not susceptible. I grow a lot of varieties and one thing I have noticed --- the smaller and less fleshy the pepper, the less chance of BER.

Does Mel's mix have any added calcium in it or instructions to add lime or gypsum or bone meal...something to supply calciium to the plants?

Try to find some water soluble calcium(maybe at a hydroponics store) and the season may still be salvageable. Next time, make sure you get some bone meal or gypsum in the mix well before planting.

You may also want to google "smokemaster witch's brew" He makes soluble calcium acetate out of dolomite lime and vinegar.

Good luck.

Kevin

the problem is trying to fruit sweet peppers in florida in the middle of summer.

Unfortunately, these canteloupes are a gift from my compost pile. I have no idea what variety they are. In the past, it seemed like they were overly ripe when the stem slipped from the melons.

I'll try the color and the netting route. Thanks.

Yeah, it's amazing how the grocery stores can get it right and sell a ripe melon with shipping times, etc. Must be the hybrids. But me, standing over mine while it ripens, still sometimes gets it wrong. ltilton is right. One day they look totally unripe, so I take my eye off the ball for a couple of days, and then whoops, it's overripe. I usually also give mine a little squeeze with the thumb and forefinger. When there's a little 'give' I can tell they're ripening.

As soon as I see that pollen is ripe, even with close planting, I go out and shake the plants several times if no wind. Of course in Ks there is alm,ost always wind. do this several days in a row. I have sometimes had 4 ears to a plant. I learned this trick from my Dad many years ago.

"I am using intensive planting this year for the first time with my corn. They are planted 6 inches apart with rows 12 inches apart. This is a block of 4 rows wide. The first planting of 4 feet x 8 feet was June 9. The 2nd planting was a week later and the 3rd planting was a week after that. The first planting has tassels on all stalks but still no ears. ???? The corn gets at least 8 hours of direct sun."

How would you harvest that corn if it produced any ears? Silver Queen will produce lots of leaves. You would not be able to walk between rows of mature corn planted 12 inches apart! I grew Silver Queen for years, but switched varieties this year to varieties more resistant to smut. To Silver King for my late white corn.

I plant my corn in rows spaced 8", but my rows are 3' apart!

I don't see how you can cultivate, fertilize, or harvest corn planted in rows 12" apart.

Thanks Dave for your awesome reply. I learnt a few things. Our temperatures are predicted to be around 80 in the day and 60 in the night for the next week. I planted some lettuce today. Will see how it does.

Sam.

My Ag. Ext. office (KSU extension) publishes a gardening schedule for recommended times for planting various crops. I looked a few days ago at my copy of the schedule I printed off of their web-site last spring, and saw that I need to plant some more beets between about August 20 and September 1. (Zone 5A).

You might check your county court-house for an Agricultural extension office that provides localized advice on planting vegetables. I have found some great information there, and they do an annual soil test for me and provide a suggested fertilizer schedule and soil amendment schedule for me for $15-16.

I don't think that you need to cover anything. 50F is not going to do any harm n 3 to 4 hours. Where I am, a lot of times our nightly lows drop to mid 50s.

But any light cover(sheets, plastic, .. )can keep them from cooling off too much. I would cover maybe just peppers. If they are not very big(as you mentioned) you can invert, bucker, trash cans, cardboard boxes, ..etc over them.

You'll be fine ajsmama. Like mentioned earlier, watering might help. The soil already is at a decent temp and moisture in the soil would definitely regulate that temp.

If you haven't already, MULCH! This will definitely extend your season some later on this fall.

Kevin

Nymphs, in their various instar forms, tend to congregate for a time. As they mature into final forms they disperse. Probably because the gang has cleaned out the readily available food source. :-)

Kind of like predator cubs in the wild. Security in the group until Mom quits bringing home the bacon and hunger becomes the ruling instinct.

Dave

Thanks Dave. I love analogies.

Or they can start doing like lacewing larvae do huh? Eat their siblings!

Kevin

Well they are now putting out new flowers so maybe they are getting ready to put out more cantaloupe

You might get lucky if there are some female flowers, your plants stay healthy and the weather holds for you. Aphids, spider mites and white flies have taken a toll on my first planting of melons. I have a later batch with melons starting to size up.

Quality of the fruit may not be as good for cantaloupes ripened in cool weather. Good luck.

Fungicides can retard it. If it's just a few leaves you can take them off, but the spores are all over. Best to spray preemptively for PM

Thank you for all your help

yes they were tasty, just that some who drug out on paranoia around here nicknamed me and pnbrown, no there is not one single evidentary case of anyone getting sick let alone worse, from using a leach field as an annual vege patch, flowers if they want, going to grow pumpkins, melons and tomatos on it as well this coming season.

the doomsayers are probably stirring their cauldron cursing people like me

anyhow all enjoy while we can, got some more kipflers ready to harvest.

len

surprised myself last night i went and ferreted up some more kipflers some red pontiacs as well, appears what i thought were sebagos were pontiacs they had no colour about then and looked to smooth, but anyway no matter any new fresh home grown 'tater will do.

anyhow got a couple or so large kipflers from 2 plants, not bad at all, went down like a treat.

len

Flea beetles LOVE eggplant leaves. However, the damage is only critical at the seedling stage. Thus , after the plant is established, FB cannot harm it seriously.

I have had FB problem for years and have discovered a simple solution: NYLON TULLE. Just throw some fine mesh NT on the plant. FB will not be able to it(make holes in) it. Chemicals/sprays MAY discourage FB butcannot destroy them. THEY HAVE WING, THEY CAN FLY. !!

My mother-in-law used to go down the row with her flour sifter, worked on cole crops and eggplant too Back in that day, there were no pesticides much to work with, they had to find their own ways to deal with pests.

Hi uscjusto

First off, your plant look just fine.

I think, it can use more water(in triple digit), as I said before. I inch of water per week is probably not enough. Then one inch over how big an area ?

I would fertilize it with PHOSPHOROUS rich (poor in Nitrogen) fertilizer, the so-called BLOOM BOOSTER type. After all, you want fruits not foliage.
P.S.
Another reason, your cuke is not producing is because of heat. Do you see some blossom drops? But, if your soil has good drainage, water them more often.

The long, Asian type cukes do seem to produce fewer but larger fruits. That said, the advice here should help you get more production than one at a time.